Tuesday 23 July 2013

Creditors to take over debt-laden Yellow Pages owner Hibu

The deal is expected to more than halve its debt, reducing it to less than ?1bn, with the creditors, including Ares, Soros Fund Management and Deutsche Bank, taking control.

An agreement, which has been under negotiation since last autumn, could be ready by Thursday, when Hibu is scheduled to release its full-year results for the year to March 2013 and its first-quarter results.

The creditors are being advised by US restructuring firm Houlihan Lokey, while Hibu is being advised by Greenhill and Goldman Sachs.

The Yellow Pages owner rebranded in May last year, when Mr Pocock admitted the new name - pronounced ?high-boo? - was "just a word".

?It doesn?t mean a lot by itself, but if you turn the clock back, neither did Apple [sic] and Google or Yahoo!,? he said at the time.

Mr Pocock and chairman Bob Wigley have attempted to turn the company around by repositioning it as a local search engine and marketplace, linking shoppers with the businesses nearest to them. They are attempting to develop new digital products as revenues from the Yellow Pages phone book and other print products decline.

The future for Hibu?s 13,000 employees remains unclear.

The root of Hibu?s crippling debt pile lies in former chief executive John Condron?s ambitious and ultimately ill-fated expansion overseas in the mid-2000s, when he took over companies in Spain, the US and Latin America.

Source: http://telegraph.feedsportal.com/c/32726/f/568796/s/2ef6ac09/l/0L0Stelegraph0O0Cfinance0Cnewsbysector0Cmediatechnologyandtelecoms0C10A1938760CCreditors0Eto0Etake0Eover0Edebt0Eladen0EYellow0EPages0Eowner0EHibu0Bhtml/story01.htm

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